


Seek Safety Away from This Gaze

by victoriousscarf



Series: Beware of Heroes [12]
Category: Dune - All Media Types, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 18:26:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2319077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First meetings are important, even if you don't understand why yet.</p><p>(And seeing the future doesn't always mean you understand it)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seek Safety Away from This Gaze

**Author's Note:**

> This is set pretty much dead center of the first Dune Book.
> 
> Super basic context is that Thorin is leading a revolution and can sense the future. Fili can also sense the future in the same way and woke up as a fully conscience being before he was even born.
> 
> ... This was not particularly where I was expecting to start this storyline.

Everyone else fell silent as the newcomers were led in, training stilling and Thorin turned toward the door. Vaguely he was aware of Bilbo flanking the entrance, where he could probably get between anyone going after Thorin standing in the center. Or at least stab them in the back.

“You have sought us out,” Thorin said, arms crossed over his chest. “What for?” His hair had started to grow wild, and some mornings Bilbo braided it back for him but today he had left it for training. At the moment he regretted the decision, because the thick strands of it were dangerously close to obscuring his vision.

“We wish the join the Fedaykin,” the man standing in the front said. He looked young, though his hair was already bleached of color. Under the glowglobes, his hair looked almost silver.

“Really?” Thorin asked, stepping forward and tilting his head. “Even the child?” he asked, because there was a small boy behind the man’s leg, his hair cut short and uneven, a startling contrast to the neat braids the two elder displayed.

The second man, his hair brown, bristled. “No,” he snapped and the elder shot a glare at him. “We heard you offered a safe place,” he said, anger in his voice and Thorin cocked a brow, as the anger was barely directed at him but at whatever the men were running from.

He did not really have to ask what that was.

Thorin sensed movement behind him, darting a glance to see Fíli sit on the low rock walkway that connected this room to the rest of the Sietch. The boy swung his legs, but his eyes were too aware as he looked at the newcomers.

“Where is your mother?” he asked, sensing several of the Fedaykin around him tense at the appearance of his nephew.

“With my brother,” Fíli said, sounding unconcerned, though the corners of his eyes were pinched. The boy behind the silvery haired man stared at him in obvious interest, even though one of his hands was still twined in the other’s robe and he made no motion to move. “She’s been quiet the last few days.”

Thorin could hear Bilbo shift, even across the room, and nodded. “Yes, I suspect she has.”

He turned back to the newcomers, trying not to dwell on when he returned to the Sietch just a few days ago. Fíli had been waiting for them, eyes too knowing even before Thorin opened his mouth. “Where is father?” he asked, as if he already expected the answer.

Thorin gave it to him anyway. “He died,” he said, no need to hide the simple fact behind kinder words.

“I thought so,” Fíli had said. “Kíli probably won’t remember him.”

Thorin had closed his eyes and nodded.

He tried not to wonder what had happened to the father of the new boy in front of him, who was watching his nephew so avidly. He wanted to pull the boy aside, redirect his gaze and his fingers itched with protective need.

“What are your names?” he asked instead. “We will need to know what to call you if you stay.”

The oldest’s shoulders sagged for a moment. “Will you let us stay then?”

“With conditions,” Thorin said. “You’re unknown. I assume you’re running from the Harkonnen like so many others. You will be judged, watched, and if you pass all our tests and our training, you will join the Fedaykin. If not, we will probably find something else for you to do to help our efforts. I promise little except work and a place of relative safety. Unless you betray us,” he added, voice dropping into ice.

The man nodded. “I am Dori,” he said. “My brothers, Nori and Ori.”

Dain stopped in the doorway, glancing at Fíli before focusing on Thorin. “I heard there were new recruits,” he said, stepping down into the training room.

“Yes,” Thorin said. “Would you like to test them?”

“With great pleasure,” Dain said and Thorin stepped back to stand next to where Fíli sat.

“Do you trust them?” Fíli asked, tilting his small head back. Sometimes Thorin was still disconcerted to have such a small child as him such serious questions but he only shrugged rather than show it.

“Trust? Certainly not,” he said, watching Bilbo fetch the boy away from his brothers and the center of the room. “But if they have a safe place, which they need, they will be loyal in time. Look at their clothes,” he added.

“Threadbare, cared for,” Fíli said, inclining his head. “They are on hard times. Or very, very good fakes.”

“It takes effort to fake that level of lived in poverty,” Thorin said. “But it’s not impossible.”

“It helps their story,” Fíli said as Dain and Dori squared off. His blue on blue eyes had drifted toward the other boy, who was still looking at him in confusion. Even though the other boy looked to be about seven, while Fíli was still only three, not quite four, his eyes were the bright blue of an adult Freman, while Ori’s were still somewhat brown, only the edges starting to glow blue.

“Yes,” Thorin agreed, and felt something at the back of his mind, a shift in his future. He was still getting used to those moments, when his prescience rumbled at him, letting him know that something had happened. Later, he would know which path this moment had pushed him further to. He looked down at Fíli, who still watched the other boy, rather than the wrestling match that had the other Fedaykin cheering, and Nori standing with his mouth thin and knuckles white, waiting for his own turn.

Thorin wondered if Fíli’s prescience felt the same thing.

He wondered if Fíli understood this moment better than he did.

Dori flipped Dain over suddenly with a shocking display of strength in that moment and Thorin looked away from his nephew, filing the future away for another time. He stepped forward, clapping, leaving Fíli to whatever he saw.

And he hoped, like he always hoped, that he knew what he was doing.


End file.
